The treatment of snoring and sleep apnoea has taken on particular relevance in recent times. In the past years, more than 300 inventions have been registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office claiming a solution to the problem of snoring and sleep apnoea. The truth is that most of them are not delivering the intended result. Ineffective, and in many cases harmful, treatments are often promoted and advertised, leading to confusion for the patient.
Although much research has been done in recent years about snoring and apnoea, the details of which remain unclear, many factors have been identified that may lead to presentation of the disease, from the consideration of the alterations of the structure of the stomatognathic system that generate a muscle movement and the compensating behaviours, which may be maladaptive. In patent documents WO9809675, EP0599445, ES1056960U and US 2008/0135056 A1, among others, treatment procedures are proposed for sleep apnoea and snoring, which are devices/appliances that, in one way or another, can correct snoring and apnoea, but that do not allow any degree of freedom of mandibular movement for the user/patient. For example, the device that is subject of the registered patent US 2008/0135056 A1, consists of an element or screw bound to a bimaxilar splint proposing a mandibular position that is regulatable only in height.
For this, the present invention focuses on achieving the correction of apnoea and snoring by use of a device enabling an advanced position of the mandible with respect to the maxilla and that also provide the mandible of the user/patient with the possibility of lateral movements, opening of both jaws and a compensated advancement (guided by central bars).
The development, evolution and change of habits of the human species in the past centuries has seen the appearance of new diseases. Their very novelty implies that they are difficult to diagnose and sometimes difficult to cure.
The diet, the lack of physical exercise, obesity, stress, postural habits and a suite of other modern and neurological factors have lead to sleep disorders, snoring and the worsening of obstructive sleep apnoea, with decreases of human quality of life in more developed regions, resulting in states of drowsiness, anxiety and frequently impacting on the rate of work and traffic accidents.
The first objective of the proposed device is the physical clearance of air flow through the atrophied or altered pharynx, causing in the first place snoring, then mild apnoea, up to the total obstruction and sudden death in the worst of cases.
To this end, the method of regulatable mandibular advancement is used by which the mandible is forced to be progressively moved forward, thereby pulling the tongue and the tissues that block posturally the pharynx. To this device features have been added allowing the opening of both jaws with a compensated advancement and unrestricted mandible movement with trajectory guided by a central bar and bilateral tracks.
Another change occurring in the human species has been dental overcrowding due to the progressive maxillar reduction, often preventing the correct position and interaction of contacts between teeth, causing interferences with consequent neurological, muscle, facial, neck, solar plexus and back disorders. Indirectly, the loss of teeth and their incorrect replacement causes prematurities and poor contacts.
The nerve endings connected to the TMJ (temporomandibular joint), if inadequate, eventually impinge on muscle nerve endings, potentially generating so-called “projected pain”.
More recent studies place interferences in mandibular closure at the base of neurofocal dentistry and associate them to the cause of many systemic diseases, affecting different body parts in different individuals, which complicates diagnosis and its consequent treatment.
The second objective of the device disclosed is to unblock said interferences and provide a tool for the treatment of muscle and systemic disorders caused by interferences between maxillas and the occlusal surfaces being treated, which can be one of the causes of central apnoea.
The treatment of clearing the air flow through the pharynx by the method of mandibular advancement is abundantly documented, and the devices and construction forms of the maxillar plates supporting them have been described in detail and demonstrated.
The devices for dental, maxillar, muscle and joint protection by excitation of interferences, opening the vertical dimension and separating maxillas by use of sliding planes, have also been abundantly detailed and described.
The device proposed in the present invention is of the type constructed with splints on both arches joined by a mechanical device allowing the mandibular advancement, with an abundance of mechanisms and shapes described providing said advancement in one or another way. The differential factors of this device are its structural design and multipurpose use, and the Applicant is not aware of any other device having, for a same purpose, similar technical, structural and constituent features.